EVENTS

That is why they don’t know how to pray

Autism associations around Turkey have reacted angrily after the head of Adana’s Health and Education Associations for Autistic Children reportedly said autistic children were “atheists due to a lack of a section for faith in their brains.”

“Autistic children do not know how to believe in God because they do not have a section of faith in their brains,” sociologist Fehmi Kaya reportedly said. “That is why they don’t know how to pray, how to believe in God. It is necessary to create awareness [or religion] in these children through methods of therapy.”

He also reportedly said atheism was a form of autism.

Ok I know this one. It’s theory of mind. Autistic people can have a defective theory of mind. If you have a working theory of mind, you understand that other people have minds just as you do, and that they have thoughts that are theirs and not yours. You don’t know what they’re thinking. So…if you have a working theory of mind, you have the ability to believe in a pure Mind that is not in some body near you, it’s somewhere else altogether, and it’s mysterious and hidden.

Well I am an Aspie but I didn’t give up on god until years of praying got me no response (among other reasons). They need to do a study to determine whether people who pray repeatedly for years also phone numbers that are not in service during that time.

Ummm… speaking as a polytheist, no…. I don’t have “extra” sections for “more faith”. I feel that Netjeru* gave us brains, and reason, and logic — we shouldn’t ignore or squander those gifts. Use them to their full potential, to preserve our planet, to heal, and to teach and learn!

*The Kemetic deities. Each individual “god” is an aspect of Netjeru, and part of the whole.

Yes, I think theory of mind is a good explanation for what he meant (what he thought he meant). And therefore autistic people who had problems imagining minds inside other people would have problems imagining an external godly supermind. But there’s a couple of flaws in this logic:

1) Plenty of atheists are ex-theists and had no problems pretending, even strongly feeling the existance of the ficticious minds of gods.
2) The ability of our minds to hold concepts doesn’t make that concept real, true or relevant:

Brains are also wonderful at noticing patterns just about everywhere.. so by this logic, was that cloud I saw the other day really “an old man’s bum”? Did my soup really contain “high-fiving Elvis”? And most importantly, did Fehmi Kaya actually do any research .. like for instance finding out from atheists whether or not they are able to make use of theory of mind? Or did Kaya actually pull this “research” out of his poopy-hole. That’s what it smells like from here, and my pattern-seeking brain can’t but help make the connection.